Do You Work For Them? – A Link Building Hypothetical

You’re using a persona for a broken link building campaign. This means that you are pretending to have non-association with the company you are link building for when you send e-mails. You send out a relatively innocent e-mail (or so you believe), reporting on some broken links and innocently suggesting a new one for them to add to their oh-so-impressive resource list.

They reply back, not in a negative fashion, but not in a paticularly positive one, either. Their e-mail is as follows:

“Thanks so much for reaching out. I’ll check out that resource. Do you mind if I ask if you work for COMPANY or sell their products? Is it a national company?”

Do you A) continue the “non-associated” act – B) come clean – or C), romp down some other path? Why?